Tip – Removing Old Camera Profiles

This questions popped up a lot in the comments section yesterday, so I wanted to address it here in a post. The problem is that once you install Lightroom 2.2, it automatically adds the new profiles into the Camera Calibration panel right along with the old beta ones. They don’t actually harm anything but I was really glad to see I’m not the only one who just hated the clutter of having 20 profiles listed in there and half of them with the word “beta” next to them. Anyway, thanks to my friend and blog-reader Howard Ignatius for jumping in and posting the fix for everyone in the comment section. I’m going to post it here as well though.

To remove the profiles go to the following folder (based on your operation system) and delete anything with the word “Beta” in it’s title. Then restart Lightroom and all should be good in the world again.

Matt is the full-time Director of Education for Kelby Media Group and a Tampa-based photographer. He's the Editor-in-Chief of Lightroom Magazine, the lead instructor on the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom LIVE Seminar Tour and author of several best-selling Photoshop books. Matt also hosts the world's top Lightroom blog, LightroomKillerTips.com, where he's built up a massive library of Lightroom videos, presets and tips. In addition to teaching Photoshop, Lightroom and photography seminars around the world, he's an instructor at Photoshop World and one of the full-time staff writers for Photoshop User Magazine.

47 Comments

Jim:
Once you delete the .DCP files you no longer want just restart lightroom and they will be gone. You can search for the profile you created with X-rite Passport or in XP go to C:Documents and SettingsimagingApplication DataAdobeCameraRawCameraProfiles

I made a camera profile with X-rite Passport.It shows in both Camera Raw and Lightroom.I want to delete the profile,but am having a problem.I have found the camera profiles folders.The profiles that are showing are .DCP files.The .DNG profile I made isn’t showing anywhere in these folders.Any ideas?

There have been a number of questions about whether profiles for cameras such as the D90 and D300 were supposed to appear in the Camera Calibration panel. Did anyone get any answer to this? I was unable to find an answer on Adobe site.

Hi Matt,
just installed the LR3 Beta Version and with the Canon 7D it only show “Beta” and nothing else under the Camera Calibration.
I removed all other camera profiles but not even the ACR or any other camera calibration will show.

Thanks for the info. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent looking for that cameraprofiles folder without success. Your tip made me think about searching for hidden files also. I then found it. Don’t know why it was hidden but the problem is solved.

lr2.2.. i do not have any camera profiles listed under camera calibration..just adobe standard, acr 4.4. adobe standard beta and camera standard…use to have pextax listed but no longer…is the correct or is something missing.
thanks Matt

I found those profile files in C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorLocal SettingsApplication DataAdobeCameraRawCameraProfiles and also, i copy them over to
C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersApplication DataAdobeCameraRawCameraProfiles, still can not find them in LR interface

on December 18th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Hello everybody!
I just update the LR to 2.2 (before I had 2.1) and I follow the instructions to find the ?beta? profiles.
I use windows XP and I found two folders inside CameraProfiles folder:
– Adobe Standard
– Camera
Both of them without any beta profile?

If you did not install the beta profiles manually they will not be there. It looks like you probably did not install them.

One more quirk when deleting the beta profiles: any image which was using a beta profile seems to look the same as when using the new released profiles, but the calibration tab no longer shows the profile name (with or without the term beta in it).

Instead, after deleting the beta profiles, the profile field in the calibration tab is now empty: this can make it more difficult later to find out which profile (eg Standard vs. Portrait for Nikon) the image had been using (and is still using, albeit now it is the corresponding release profile), not to mention you have no idea which profile you are copying/pasting if you’d like to Sync this image with new ones…

What does happen with all the photos which has one of the beta profiles attached?
I like to switch them to the new profiles before removing the beta ones. Is there a way to filter all of these photos by a filter or something like this.

@DaveK
At first, it looked like all my images had migrated over to the now official “Camera Standard” profile. However, the images looked darker. So I checked, and sure enough, even though it said “Camera Standard”, LR had processed them as Adobe Raw 4.4

I had to switch the profiles to another one, and then back to the one I wanted (in my case “Camera Standard”) and then sync that with all my photos… I don’t have many (about a thousand), since I’m new to LR, so it wasn’t bad. But I’m positive there is a better way.

This might have happened with me because I made the official profile my default, quit LR, deleted the beta profiles, and then opened LR again. Maybe if I hadn’t made the official profile the default, LR would have reverted properly.

Just be sure to check your image to make sure it actually reverted to the profile you wanted. Even though it says one thing, it might still be processing with Raw 4.4

For me, they migrated over to the released profiles automatically. However, as I mentioned in my blog, there may have been changes to the profiles between beta and release. Since my work flow applies camera calibration first, all my images could have some unexpected results by getting ride of beta profiles. So I would try both the beta and release profiles on the same image and make sure the results appear to be the same.

For example, I use Nikon’s Vivid setting a lot so I would take an unedited image and apply Camera Vivid then Camera Vivid beta to see what happens. To do this you create a Virtual copy of a RAW image in LR, apply Camera Vivid to one and Camera Vivid beta to the other, then in the Library Module use the XY setting to compare beta vs release.

So far I have not seen any differences in my work so I deleted the beta profiles. It would have been nice to have a list of those profiles that changed between beta and release, but using the above procedure worked well for me.

Thanks for the tip (as always).
I’ve yet to install the LR2.2 update but before I go ahead do this and remove the beta profiles, can you advise what will happen to RAW files previously ‘developed’ with the appropriate beta profile?
Will they revert back to the default LR profile setting or will such files automatically be migrated over to the corresponding final profile setting via LR2.2?

Matt
I installed LR 2.2 yesterday, and now my camera profile panel on the bottom right just shows ‘embedded’/with the sliders, no individual camera profiles, so I can’t set up develop presets. What gives?

Matt, thanks as always for this. In removing the beta stuff, I noticed that there are file for various cameras (D300 for example). But when i am in LR and go to the Camera Calibration panel, I don’t have a choice for a D300 profile. Because the metadata knows what camera I shot with, will it choose a profile for D300 only or should I have more pull downs in my menu?